“I decide!” Amber’s voice was not sharp, but the pitch of it made it carry. “The captain put me in charge of this. I decide when the ship needs a weapon. We’ve been ordered to flee, not fight.” He thought he heard an edge of fear in her voice, but the cold anger masked it well. In a quiet, earnest voice, he heard her exhort Paragon, “It’s not too late. We can still outrun them. No one has to die.”

“Give me my staff!” Paragon demanded, his voice going shrill on the last word. “I’ll kill the bastards! I’ll kill them all!”

Brashen could see them now, a tableau on the foredeck. Amber stood, Paragon’s long staff gripped in both hands. Lavoy’s stance was confrontational, but despite his words and the men at his back, he hadn’t dared to set a hand on the staff. Amber looked past him to Paragon.

“Paragon!” Amber pleaded. “Do you truly want blood on your decks again?”

“Give it to him!” Lavoy urged. “Don’t try to hide a whole ship behind your skirts, woman! Let him fight if he wants to! We don’t need to run.”

Paragon’s answer was interrupted by a different sound. Behind Brashen, a grapple thudded to the deck, rattled across it and caught for an instant in the railing before it fell back into the water. Eager shouts rang out from below, and another grapple was thrown.

“Boarders!” Haff cried out. “Starboard aft!”

Brashen put steel in his voice as he swiftly mounted the foredeck. “Lavoy! Get aft. Repel those boarders! Archers. To the railing and hold the boats off us. Paragon. Answer the helm, with no wallowing. Are you a ship or a raft? I want us out of here.”

There was the tiniest pause before Lavoy answered, “Aye, sir!” As he moved aft to obey, his hearties went with him. Brashen could not see what glance passed between Amber and Lavoy as he passed her, but he marked the white pinch of Amber’s lips. Her clenched hands tightened on the weapon she had shaped for the ship. He wondered what she would have done if Lavoy had tried to take it. Brashen stored the incident in his mind, to deal with later. He stepped to the railing, and leaned over it to shout at the figurehead.

“Paragon! Stop thrashing about and sail. I’d rather put these vermin behind us than fight them.”

“I won’t flee!” Paragon declared wildly. His voice went boyish and broke on the words. “Only cowards run! There’s no glory in running from a fight!”

“Too late to run!” Clef’s excited voice piped from behind. “They’ve caught us, sir.”

In dismay, Brashen spun to survey Paragon’s deck. Half a dozen boarders had already gained the deck in two places. They were practiced fighters, and they held their formation, keeping a clear place behind them for their fellows swarming up the grappling lines. For now, the invaders sought only to defend the small gain they had made, and they did it very well. Brashen’s inexperienced fighters got in one another’s way as they attacked as a mob. Even as he watched, another grapple fell to the deck, slid and caught. Almost as soon as it was secure, he saw a man’s hand reaching for the top of the railing. His own men were so busy fighting those on board they did not even notice this new threat. Only Clef leaped away from him, to charge across the main deck and confront the men coming up. Brashen was horrified.

“All hands, repel boarders!” he roared. He turned back to Paragon. “We’re not ready for this yet! Ship, they’ll take us if you don’t get us clear of them. Make him see reason!” he shouted at Amber.

He sprang away to follow Clef, but to his dismay, Althea was there before him. As the boy darted his knife at the man trying to come over the railing, Althea tugged vainly at the grappling hook. The three-tined hook was set well into the railing, and the weight of the men swarming up the line attached to it only encouraged the metal to bite deeper into the wood. A shot of chain fastened directly behind the hook prevented the defenders from simply cutting the hook free. Before Brashen could reach them, Clef gave a wild scream and thrust frenziedly with his knife. It bit deeply into the throat of the grinning pirate who had just thrown an arm over the railing. The blood gouted dark red, spouting past the man’s beard to drench both Clef and Althea before spattering onto the deck. A deep shout from Paragon told Brashen the ship had felt it. The dying man fell backward. Brashen heard the impact as he crashed heavily in the small boat below. Cries told him the falling body had done damage.

Brashen shouldered Althea aside. “Stay safe!” he ordered her. “Get back!” He swung one leg over the railing, and locked the other through it, so he straddled it firmly. He thrust down with his sword, slashing the face of a pirate who still clung to the line. Fortune had favored them. The falling man had near swamped the boat below and knocked down the man who had been bracing the line. As the second pirate lost his grip and fell, Brashen saw his chance. He sprang back to the deck and jerked the grapple loose. With a triumphant cry, he threw it down into the sea. He spun about, grinning, expecting Althea and Clef to share his victory. Instead, Althea’s face was twisted with anger. Clef still looked numbly at the knife in his hands and the blood that coated them. A shout from aft turned his head. The fight was not going well there. He leaned down and shook Clef’s shoulder. “Think later, boy! Come on, now.”